[ILUG] Minimal Desktop / Workstation Install [long by now !]

[Wynne, Conor]

Not being able to mail ilug anymore, I decided I'd jump in here. I've been
slowly weaning my Uncles companies to the one and only communistic/anarchic
os/mentality. 

They already posess site licenses for M$ produce, doze, office blah blah
blah, but I've been using Openoffice here in work for the past few weeks
aswell as from home in linux, savinf files in M$ format etc etc. So far so
good, I haven't had any problems with any of the documents I've tried [some
have been quite large and with pictures]. It remains to be seen if all his
excel macros will run properly though, but its worth a go :)

So this week-end the test is on, the uncles laptop [still doze98 and will
stay that way till I get a linux version of pc-anywhere] will run OpenOffice
1.0 and the secretaries will run same on linux. If they like it -as if they
have a choice :) then we shall get the full blown staroffice [well one copy
to start with] for the spell checker and support, and coz Sun aint
MickeySoft.

The servers have already been converted to the faith. Nuked by yours truly
:)

Getting back on thread, I agree that PC133 sucks ass, don't run KDE 2 or 3
or Gnome, so if you use a fast wan -> maybe windowmaker, it looks shite to
doze heads so I think getting a better box for the demo [have not had a
chance to follow this thread]

The uncles secretaries will be PIII's with as much RAM as I can find in my
wee hardware drawer, personally I wouldn't use less for a demo.

My 0.2 europes
CW

----------------------------------------------
Thought that might be the response <g>

Driving factor is a saving of over $150 per-head per-annum on Office
licences - remember Enterprises with 54000 or so minions are in a different
ballpark where licencing arrangements are concerned !

They're currently evaluating a few options ... including OO.org on windows
to break a certain dependance chain <g>

The machine I'm using (the l'il P133) is only a proof of concept, that we
_can_ get a secured, minimal desktop install that'll run OO.org (in some
form) and able to load documents from an SMB shared drive (curiosly samba's
doing that already from Solaris boxen !)

The idea is that I'll be able to get a reasonable (looking) desktop and have
the nice features that users expect (including an MSoffice-compatible
suite), and the receipe for doing so ... the hardware isn't the issue, and
we do appriciate that it's going to be slow ... I already have it working
here, it's just that the space is more of an issue ...

A reasonable Windows install with office can be fit onto a 250MB hard-drive
if needs be, on the other hand, OO.org requires that for itself !

Am I making any sense here ?

Essentially - Hardware is not the issue ... we'd *like* to use the older
machines if / where possible but considering there are many dual PIII's
that'll be considered obselete by the time XP gets here ... I'd say we're in
with a fighting chance of getting reasonable hardware ... the question is
more "What utils would be considered _necessary_ for a user workstation -
before you get to the OO.org / Evolution etc stage ?"

P

> -----Original Message-----
> Seriously, Pron, the hardware spec. compared to what you want to demo. is
> pathetic. What's the point of the demo. ? If some poor pundits are going
> to
> be asked to use these machines for a period of time as a kind of test of
> Linux + OO the unanimous result at the end will be "Linux and OO is
> shite". 
> 
> Presumably ML already paid for licenses for Win 95/98 and Office 97 or
> somesuch - going to be a happier combination than trying to run Linux + OO
> on such a low spec box
> 
> > people who spend their days working on NT boxes, but using nothing but X
> > sessions exported to eXceed anyway <g>)
> 
> Now you're probably talking - either of the spec'ed boxes mentioned would
> make a nice little X terminal.
>